Trolling

Yes, guys, I used to be a troll. I hope I can say I used to be a troll, because I don’t really know if my trolling days are over yet. Sometimes you just have to do a lot of something in order to learn how pointless it is. Like a lot of people who did a lot of crazy stuff when they were teenagers - vandalism, shoplifting, taking recreational drugs – and then went on to lead perfectly normal adult lives.

Of course trolling had to do with the internet. Flaming was a new phenomenon, since the internet allows you to say stuff to people you wouldn’t necessarily say to their face.

It began during my 4th year at the uni. You guys know by now that I’m a social camel – I can go without human contact for long stretches. But by the 4th year it had begun to grate on me a lot. I had come to the limits of what books could teach me. I hadn’t been disciplined in getting to know people – you do have to stay in the same place for a long time, and establish some kind of a routine. I was bad at that. Or else I felt like I had much to lose from staying in the same place for too long.

The Singapore I knew, and had left 3 years earlier had been a place that was quite closed to itself, and very conservative. People were always afraid of speaking out. There was very little contact with the outside world. I was thoroughly sick and tired of it by the time I left for the US.

What I found online was a great eye-opener. Before I elaborate on this, I should make very brief generalisations about different versions of Singapore that I had encountered. The first version I saw in my school days. The fact that I came from a school which had pretensions to not being elitist partially blinded me to the fact that it, in fact was. I went through school with blinkers on, thinking that just because not everybody lived in a big house, and just because not everybody was chauffeured to school, and not everybody had music lessons, I did know something about the average Singaporean. Well guess again!

The second version was what I saw in NS – some hooligans, not very happy at being slighted all their lives, being generally hostile to what they saw as upper-class people. They had a different ethos – I was actually, for the first time in my life, surrounded by people who didn’t feel that it was necessary to scamper for the best grades. Everybody lived in 3 room flats, everybody was short of money, and there was a general sense of despair.

All the same, in the first 2 versions, everybody was very careful about what they said. Nobody ever was very frank about what they thought about the government. Nobody criticised the government openly. I knew about a few instances of bureaucratic silliness, of course, but nobody was completely unhappy about the Singapore government, nobody expressed it openly.

There were a few online people who were virulently against the policies of the Singapore government. For the first time in my life, I saw a lot of honest debate going back and forth. I thought, great! Finally! The moment I had been waiting for was here, Singapore was a free country! Well, yes and no.

I admit that I was sufficiently fascinated by these chat boards that I spent 3 or 4 weeks at a go spending much of my waking hours looking through them. Partially I was bored and homesick.

Later on, I began writing some pieces of my own. I thought that it was extremely reckless of me to do so, but I wrote a lot of politically incorrect stuff. At first a lot of the stuff came from the essays I was doing in school – I had taken a lot of history / political science courses, and there was a lot of deep thinking going on. But it was also a lot of getting the facts wrong. I hadn’t been involved in this stuff for a long time and I wasn’t too good with the background knowledge.

There were some tactics that people used when trolling. I generally held forth but didn’t go out to upset people if they didn’t upset me. Then again I didn’t bite my tongue when commenting and inevitably somebody would get upset. And when I hit back, I didn’t spare them. There was the potential for things to get ugly quickly.

There were a few factors on my side. I was a rigorous thinker (but not perfectly rigorous – I made mistakes now and then). I knew sarcasm. It helped that you had a sense of humour, because it helps win people over – even, in some cases, when you did not deserve it.

One of the first things I had debated on was an incident that took place in Singapore right after 9/11. At that time there was a struggle to understand the meaning of terrorism, and there was still a lot of sympathy towards America. It was the issue of whether Malay girls were allowed to wear tudungs to school. I argued that it was OK, even though even though the Ministry of Education banned it in the end. You had to allow the Malays their own space, people needed to be equal, everybody had to have their rights, and anyway Sikhs get to wear their turbans. You didn’t want to discriminate against the Malays, because if you did that, they would get pissed off, and at that time, I subscribed to the idea that terrorism took place because Muslims felt they were slighted. More important, I didn’t see why the tudung could be made part of the uniform in a madrassa, and you banned it in mainstream schools.

Most of the people felt that the tudung was a symbol of Islamism, and that it would be best if we didn’t encourage that movement. There was something to that argument, that I didn’t consider at that time. You could cut down on Malays being singled out at school because they dressed funny. You wanted people to practice Islam, but at the same time you wanted them to think of themselves as Singaporeans first and Malays second.

The funny thing now is that I’m not so sure about the situation. I would have been totally indifferent to the issue, and yet at that time I was so passionate about it to take up (verbal) arms with others.

I actually interacted with people much more on that level than in person. I learnt a lot about people that way. There was a bit of nastiness sometimes – when I detected that somebody I didn’t like was getting carried away and possibly getting emotional, I nudged the guy a little towards the edge. It was possible to understand the buttons that would make a guy worked up.

Sometimes it was funny, and once there was even a time when I simulated sex with another person in a public forum. I certainly hope that person is a female. Anyway, there are unconscious differences in the way that men and women talk, and if you want to impersonate a girl, you need to do it the right way. Then there is the fun of taking on another person when you’re online. My persona most of the time here has been the nerdy professor. But at other times I can be the foul mouthed ah beng. There were a lot of people who speculated that the short- lived but popular blog rockson was actually authored by a well educated guy with social status. I wouldn't be surprised if it was.

There was a particularly nasty incident when this person just came up to insult the victims of a natural disaster. I put him down on a website that used to have a lot of traffic. Later on, he transpired to launch a prolonged campaign against me to smear my name (or at least smear my blog, since he didn’t know the identity.) At that time, I had to make a decision. I could just disappear and give up, or I could just keep on showing up and piss him off. I ended up choosing the latter. I thought that it was the most effective way to punish him, to show up every now and then and force him to keep on attacking me. (It’s entirely his choice whether or not to quit. But in another way it’s a trap because I know he hates losing face so much that he will keep on attacking me, even though he’s sick of it.) Then he turns to a life of crime. Well, I quit, eventually, but not before really pissing him off. I only regret that I spent so much time and effort on that myself.

I wasn't sure of his identity, and he came to my old website to make amends. I wasn't going to forgive him easily, so I pretended to play along, until a check on my site counter convinced me that my impersonator was him. (it's quite obvious - he was the only guy visiting my blog who was visiting from Santa Clara). I ended up closing down my blog, and giving an excuse that I had stopped blogging. But in the end, I just ended up setting up this blog. I suppose all announcements of the death of this blog (or the previous blog) are premature.

Of course I had to ask myself, why did I bait people? There were things to learn. I think you just have to pick up skills in defending yourself, in getting along with people. In delivering comebacks. Whether it’s the right sort of skill to learn is something else altogether.

I suppose a lot of it is paradoxical. I’m not crazy about human company. But I still like to debate a lot.

Is a lot of it worth it? I now look back on that part of my life when I was doing this more often (actually I don’t recall flaming anybody for around 2 years) and then I thought, I wouldn’t have been bothered with this if I had been engaged in something more useful. At the beginning it was useful practice. But I guess it’s outlived its use, which is why I don’t do it anymore.

It is a great coincidence that I had written this entry, some of which concerns -ben, around this time. Because just this week, I got news - from Nat, of all people, that -ben is dead. This means that I don't have to worry about him anymore, I don't have to think about getting my back on him anymore. A lot of problems disappear with time. The only reason why I retired the sieteocho name is also dead. And since I much prefer the name of my old blog, I will revert back to it. Also, for the first time, I will acknowledge that the author of these 2 blogs are the same person. So this is the last entry on this blog.

JC2

When I look back upon the different years of my life, 1 year stands out in 1 respect. It was the year in which I was in JC2.

It was not the year in which I had the most personal growth. It was not the most exciting year. (Actually, in some ways, it was.) It was also the year where I failed a Maths exam for the first time. (I’m counting from primary school – failing maths exams in pre-school doesn’t count, and in any case I don’t remember.)

At the beginning of the year, my father grabbed me by the scruff, and told me, this is the most important year of your life. (For a long time, anyway). That is partially true only – all the years of your life, before you become old and infirm, are important. But he was right in another sense.

A lot of good things happened because I did well in school during that year. In the Singapore school system, you spend 12 years in school, and apparently years 1 to 11 are not that important, but only to let you get to the next level. At the end of your 12th year, in your “A” levels, you will write a series of exams that will determine your fate to a large extent. Which uni you go to, for instance.

I had mostly been a B student. My teachers all saw me as a B student with 1 extra gear that is seldom used. That year, I used that extra gear. I cut back on a lot of my ECAs. I dunno how I managed to clock up a good ECA record, but honestly there was a lot of interesting things, except that when you looked closer, you might notice that it was missing a bit of depth. For example, I did very few things that involved leadership.

I actually started having some structure in my life, which is not really difficult if you’re attempting to do just 1 thing. I don’t remember being exceptionally stressed that year. I was like a farmer. You just did what you were supposed to do every day, and when the autumn comes, you get bountiful harvests.

So that year was the year, I applied for the uni that I got into. (In fact it was only my third choice uni, even though there were many who would gladly study there. My first 2 choices rejected me.) I got a near perfect score for my “A”s. It led to some good things that you guys might know about.

I don’t think that I did anything really meaningful that year. It was a good year, a happy year. For once I didn’t have to feel disappointed about school. There was a peace of mind. Nothing to do but sleep and study. But terribly unexciting. You could say I lived the Singaporean dream.

Joo Chiat

If you asked me what years were very good years for me, I would unhesitatingly tell you, 1992 and 1999. I don’t really want to elaborate, or maybe I may have blogged about this before. That’s why, when 2006 came around I was wondering if the time was ripe for a change. (ie every 7 years I get a year which is amazing)

When you look back upon it, it was a gradual change. It was nowhere as important to me as what happened during 92 or 99. But there was something there. I felt that it was easier for me to talk to people. I no longer had the knots in my stomach when approaching others, as I did in my earlier days. Whether or not that made me a better person, though, is something that’s highly open to debate.

In January of that year, my maternal grandmother died. It was actually a good thing, because she had been in a coma for 3.5 years. At the risk of sounding heartless I’m glad that her suffering was over. I met the cousins from the maternal side of the family, many of whom I had not seen regularly over the last 10 years. It turned out that we did get along. It was OK.

Around May of that year, Basketball Jones (I’m calling him that, but you guys should be able to guess who he is) asked me to join Harry Redknapp (ditto) and him at dinner. I thought, that’s a bit funny, but I did join in.

Basketball Jones was about to leave the department. He had just broken up. After a while I realized that he was in a state and he just needed people to go help him cheer up. I didn’t go, “hey that’s not fair people never do that kind of stuff for me”. I just thought, OK, let’s go.

After dinner, we ended up in a sleazy club in Joo Chiat. Harry Redknapp brought us there. Most of the bar girls were Vietnamese. Most were smart enough to have picked up Chinese, but a few of them didn’t know the language. I cynically thought, “well, I’m not going to waste time in here, am I?” So I grabbed somebody. It was OK, but it felt really strange to be groping a complete stranger, no matter how well-proportioned she was. I was looking a little enviously at Basketball Jones, because he got somebody I kinda fancied. But on subsequent visits I never saw her, and anyway we made it a point not to get girls that any other of us had been close to before.

It was kinda tiring, I got home after midnight, and the next morning had to get back to work. I remember meeting Basketball Jones in the hallway the next morning, we looked at each other and started laughing, and then we walked off without saying a word.

On the second visit, another girl came up to me and started fondling me. I told her to go away, but I took a second look at her, and said, “you’re OK”. Well there was this hanky panky. Let’s call her Winnie. At the same time, Basketball Jones had this girl, called her Apple, and he said that Apple reminded him of Fiona Xie. I don’t really know if that was healthy. He wasn’t having his way with Apple, wasn’t treating her like a sex object, the way that I was treating those who came up to me. I think that he had rebound-itis. (Rebound is a basketball term, is it not?) By then, Harry Redknapp had already found his regular, Peach, and was making her his mistress.

There was another trip, to Sentosa. Harry Redknapp got 4 girls (including to meet us there. It was very weird, what if people saw me? There was Winnie. There was Peach. Then there was this ah-nine (not to be confused with numbernine). I thought that ah-nine was really hot, but I couldn’t possibly be having two at one go, could I? We had dinner in one of the hotel restaurants. It was a nice balmy night. And after a long walk, they had to go to work. It was embarrassing for Basketball Jones and me, but Harry Redknapp seemed to enjoy making us flustered. (In fact I was so flustered that after this was over, I spent 1-2 hours sitting in Coffee Bean, reading a book, doing things that I felt were normal, in order to exorcise away that feeling of being unclean.)

I don’t really know if people at work suspected anything, other than us going for lunch together and discussing the night before. My mother was getting upset, asking me why I stayed out so late at night, and so often. I asked her if she ever worried about that when I was not at home for 4 years.

A lot of them, you had your way with them, and at the end of the night, you gave them “tips”. It would maybe amount to $20, $30? The girls would go fondle a few male customers per night. I don’t know what the mathematics would be like. Did they have to give a cut to the owner, did they have to pay rents on their crowded apartments? I don’t know how often they had to go back home before they overstayed their visitor’s visa. One of the pubs that we went to brazenly called itself the “U-turn” pub. The beer was often expensive - $40 a jug. But you got different kinds of jugs there as well.

I felt that I hardly connected with the people around there. I didn’t really identify with them. Winnie seemed to like me. And she got upset when I played with more than 1 girl. She seemed like a nice girl, and I might have considered hooking up with her, but for the fact that we met under such circumstances. It’s true that when you know somebody likes you, that person immediately becomes more attractive. Well, at least she made me start to think about what I wanted my girlfriend to be like. I want to believe that she’s a nice person, but like that old saying, what’s a nice person like you doing in a place like this?

Harry Redknapp carried on his affair with Peach during this period. She wasn’t that pretty, and her face reminded me of Patricia Mok. But she had a good body. And sometimes Harry Redknapp would disappear just to carry on his tryst with her. I never really understood what happened to her after this whole episode was over, but I suppose we all understood that these things didn’t last forever.

I suppose it was nice to be able to shed your inhibitions in an environment like this. I kinda enjoyed the feeling that Harry Redknapp, Basketball Jones and I were buddies, we were quite literally partners in crime. Now I know where that term comes from. It was around the time of the World Cup, so we just had extra excuses to stay out late, we could say it was the World Cup. It wasn’t a good World Cup, though – the matches were quite boring.

I didn’t feel a thing. I didn’t think that much about Winnie. I sometimes wondered why she was so nice. Maybe she felt that deep down I wasn’t the sleazy type? Maybe I was a little unpredictable when playing with her, and she liked it? Most probably she saw that Harry Redknapp was so nice to Peach, and thought that I was possibly cut from the same cloth. Well she was wrong. And I have to say that Harry Redknapp has his way with the ladies. Basketball Jones kept on calling him his “idol”. But I wondered if it wasn’t at the same time a form of emotional manipulation, so that Harry Redknapp would still want to bring us out.

There’s nothing wrong with having an episode like this in your life. You watched those coming of age movies (one example is HHH’s “A Time to Live, a Time To Die”) and you had those teenage boys visiting prostitutes to be schooled in these sort of things. Well these were not prostitutes (and I did not shag anybody throughout these 2 months that these things were going on). But I was grateful to Harry Redknapp for showing me a different side of life in Singapore.

But much as I was grateful to him, I wasn’t completely eager for these things. I drew the line – after Basketball Jones returned to his homeland, all this was over. Joo Chiat, the Geylang tours, the late nights watching football. There was the small matter that Harry Redknapp was married with kids. One time, we even had lunch with his wife so that he could show her that what was going on was completely innocuous. The conversation was forced and stilted, I don’t think she was completely convinced.

And there was this thought at the back of my mind that I was never the sort of person who did this sort of things regularly. I enjoyed the fact that I was breaking convention like this. I always wanted to do naughty things. But was this a lifestyle? No way. I remember, there was once we went out, had a lot of hanky panky. The next evening, I was at the wedding dinner of one of my school friends, all straight-laced, civil servant types. The juxtaposition was just too glaring.

So I promised myself, this was the end. And it was. There were 1 or 2 trips after Basketball Jones was gone, and that was it. It’s not sinful to have a short period of time where you did all this stuff, but once you made a habit of it, you’ve crossed the line. And as much as this had to teach me about girls, sometimes it teaches you all the wrong lessons. Girls are never this submissive in real life. Things don’t work this way in real life. A lot of it wasn’t pleasant. It was a little distasteful towards the end. I only went with it because I felt that I had to.

Anyway, back to 2006. Shortly after Basketball Jones left, I got my act together and organized a department gathering. We had everybody go to East Coast Park. It was a nice, sunny day. I think I was also going through a period at work, where I was getting along fine. (Well I never got along that fantastically, but around that time was as good as it ever got.) A lot of barriers that had existed when I first started work were starting to crumble. I got to the point where I was comfortable going to work. This was not the same as saying that I was the model employee – I still fell short of that. But a lot of things that had seemed impossible now seemed possible. There were possibilities in the future.

The bunch of colleagues I had then, they were my favourite bunch. You could pick other colleagues who were there at different times, and say, some were smarter, some were more hard-working. But that batch was my favourite bunch. Maybe there was just a very high concentration of friendly people. By 2007, many of them were gone. By now, of course, most of them are gone, except 1 or 2 bosses.

However, just as in 92 or 99, I felt that I did not entirely fulfill the possibilities that were opened up during that year. After moving 2 steps forward, I often felt like there was the inevitable step back. 2006 marked the time when I started feeling comfortable with my job. Before that I was emphatically not comfortable in it. I was pissing off a lot of people and they returned the favour. It was a gradual process but 2006 was a watershed. In case you’re wondering, it was more the being part of a gang with Harry Redknapp and Basketball Jones than the hanky panky with the ladies, although it was the latter that made us a gang for a short period of time. I became comfortable with my job, but that was the danger: I became too comfortable in it, and that explains why, of this writing, I’m still in that job.

I’m only starting to come to terms with what I should have done after that, after losing a great deal of my emotional inhibitions in dealing with people. I’m wondering how I could have capitalized. I still don’t know the way forward. It’s all a blur.

A lot of times in America, I told myself, wouldn’t it be nice if I had the maturity of an older person, I could just go up to people and then work things out, make things happen. A lot of the times, I wanted to do that but something just stopped me. I ended up being a passive observer a lot. Well even as a passive observer I learnt an incredible amount of stuff. But I knew that the next step would be getting rid of my teenage awkwardness. Well it’s finally happened. Very late, but it’s happened.

Computer game walkthroughs

I played computer games as a kid. Not very many of them, only a few. I stopped playing them when I was 15. Actually I still play PC games like solitaire, minesweeper, freecell etc but I only restrict myself to them. I thought that there are a lot of other things you can do with your real life other than play games.

It was never a straightforward thing where I just enjoyed playing computer games. I always had at least some guilt about playing them. Maybe they detracted from my spending every possible hour studying, or maybe it was just my having a little more fun than my parents thought I had a right to. Whatever. To give a sense of perspective, I feel less guilt jerking off nowadays than I did in those days playing computer games.

It used to be that my mother would give me a hard time for playing computer games too much, yet at the same time she is one of the most compulsive players of computer games I have ever seen. She would play bridge with people online until 2 in the morning, and yet when I come back in the wee hours of the morning, after finishing off 100 pages of books (you may laugh but I’m a slow reader) she says that I’m not living a decent life. In another day and age I might have taken her comments to heart but I’m old enough to see those comments as what they are – absolute nonsense.

Anyway I have since concluded that computer games don’t really do very much for you. They shut you away from people. (But those were the pre-internet days, so I’m not sure now.) They take up your time. You don’t really accomplish much. A game does suck you in. The colourful graphics seduce you. It’s called “adventure” even though you are being holed up in your room as you play.

I play platform games, even though my hand co-ordination is not very good – people out there can finish 3 or 4 games in the time I take to finish one. But it’s the discovery of secrets that fascinate me. (This is one reason why I still believe today that I should be a scientist.) Hidden trapdoors. What happens when you pull this lever? Secret rooms. Secret weaknesses of powerful monsters.

Sometimes I suspect: is my preparation for the marathon nothing more than a glorified computer game? I finish level 1 (half marathon), I try level 2. If I finish level 2 I win a medal, and then I have this medal to brag about for the rest of my life. That’s pretty much it. I think about what I have achieved when finishing a computer game. The end of the game scenes for computer games are notoriously disappointing. You spend hours – 30? 40? – of your precious time and energy trying to get to the end, and all you get is Mario Plumber getting the princess. OK, you know that Mario is a plumber and will inevitably end up checking out her pipes but it is a letdown. The only reward for finishing a game, is the getting there. Is this the same for my attempt to run a marathon?

I seldom date people. But there was one time on the afternoon before I was to meet Teapot, I finished playing one computer game. My reasoning was this: even if nothing further took place because of our encounter, at least I could claim to have saved the world. I felt good about myself.

A blogger friend of mine (actually he’s my old classmate) wanted to fulfill an old dream of his and started a game software company. I wonder how he’s doing now.

When you play world of warcraft (and there were a bunch of guys who used to play WOW during lunchtime at my place even though I wasn’t one of them) you will see a lot of gold miners. If you study history, then you might find that when Columbus discovered the New World, and subsequent Spanish discoverers found that those lands had plenty of gold, all the Indians were enslaved and made to work full time mining gold. In a way, the quest for gold in computer games can be considered a celebration of genocide. But I digress…

I found a new hobby: when you go looking through youtube, for many computer games you will find “walkthrough” where most computer games are solved, and the action recorded down. It’s a crazy feeling, seeing all those puzzles you agonized over – 10, 20 years ago solved in front of you, just like that. It is a wonderful feeling. There is a lot of closure, as though something, somewhere clicked, and you feel like you can move on.

I think that once you have finished with something you must turn away and never go back. Old computer games. Old girlfriends. Old hobbies. (I will never write another play, or run another marathon.) You will have the memories, but they have to remain as memories.

Conan Volta
A shitty little game but I liked this one. Always wanted to know what lay beyond level 3. Who would have guessed that Conan is now the Governor of California?



Rick Dangerous
I have a colleague whose name is Ricky and when I first saw him I was like, "wow, he looks just like Rick Dangerous.



Rick Dangerous 2



Immortal



Maniac Mansion
This is a great game. I'm showing you the sickest part of the game, which involves a hamster.



Lost Vikings
A good thinking game.



Next: Jet Grind Radio, Gods, Leisure Suit Larry, Heretic, Rampage, Castle of Illusion.

Teapot part 1

Teapot

When she joined our office I hardly took notice of her. But she was already quite distinctive looking: short, stout (for want of a better word) but with a flowing lock of hair all the way down to her waist. I still remember being squeezed with her at the back of a car on the way to the company recreation centre.

After a few fire drills, I found myself unable to keep my eyes off her. She was hardly somebody who you would call beautiful at first sight, but she had a way of growing on you. I liked that she looked so unusual – I’m usually drawn to people who dare to be different.

It probably was discomforting for her, she noticed me. I tried to chat her up, and emailed her. The initial attempts at conversation were stilted, and it was not easy to find stuff to talk about, we didn’t know that many people in common.

One Valentine’s day, I decided to be cheeky and send her a Valentine in the form of a poem. I can’t really remember much of what happened after that. She thought it was funny. I didn’t expect anything else to come out of it, other than it planting a seed in her head.

A few months passed, and soon Shingot was about to get married. At around the same time, she was transferred to another building. Shingot knew I was after her, so he invited her to his wedding (I was there too of course) and then arranged to have her sat at my table. When she asked him if there was anyone to pick her up, he forwarded the email to me. I don’t know what turn the conversation was taking, but she said that she was happy to eat anything that had meat in it, even human meat. I wrote right back to me: “you can eat my meat anytime baby.” According to LC, she choked on a drink when she wrote that.

Thereafter began our first date. At Shingot’s wedding, in full view of a lot of people from the office. She dressed in a red dress which looked really good (she said that wasn’t her best dress but I don’t believe it 100%). I brought out my new red shirt. It was a coincidence. But we did look a lot like a real couple that night, except that she barely reached up to my shoulder.

We talked for a bit, but I can’t remember much about the conversation. She laughed at my inability to concentrate on more than one thing at a time, but I was a novice driver, and nervous. We found that we were both music lovers (but that meant not that much, because we listened to totally different kinds of music.) She was being animated and telling me about how much she loved this or that music when it played. She had decent taste. But she thought that the Sly Stone I had on the car player was crazy music and preferred to listen to her 933. I remember her raving about Jay Chou’s “secret”. She sang in a choir. It was an OK date, neither fantastic nor disastrous.

At the end of the evening, she took pictures of us. I don’t know why, but probably to remember one time when she went out with a guy 1 foot taller than she was. We passed by some of her colleagues, who asked her if she wanted a ride. She said that she was going to her aunt’s place in Geylang to spend the weekend. I said that I stayed in Bedok, and I was going to send her home because it was on the way. She spoke the truth; I lied. But later on she told me she thought the white lie was quick thinking.

We had a follow up date a week later. It was just me and a colleague and her, we played tennis. I remember that she brought a very cute back pack. We laughed and played tennis. I didn’t have the car that day because I didn’t have the pass to drive in. After the games, though, she took a long shower. I, customarily didn’t bathe. Ghost offered to drive us to dinner after the game, but she asked to be taken home instead. I was upset at that, but later on it occurred to me that she was probably disgusted.

She did ask me for help on a few things, and we did exchange some more SMSs. I asked her out one more time for dinner, but she made an excuse at the last minute. Thus ended the first phase of my attempts to win her over.

There was some banter, and she did tell me that she liked some of my funny comments at work.

1 year later I showed her photos of my trip to the US. She liked some of the funny pictures. Also claimed to know immediately that the other chick in my photos was my sister. Then she sent me a photo of herself. Sounded like a good sign, but I never followed up on that. I didn’t think that I was ready yet.

(to be continued)

Procrastination

England is not famous for producing skilled footballers. But there was Matthew Le Tissier. He had no pace, but he was extremely skilled, strong, and scored many goals. He played for a club called Southampton who was always one of the weaker sides in the top flight of English football, yet he comfortably kept them in the Premier League year after year. Recently, their financial troubles has been one of the sad stories of English football.

In Southampton, during his time, he was regarded as God. He was the captain of the side. He scored spectacular goals. He took around 50 penalties over his career and only ever missed one. But invariably his name has the adjective “enigmatic”. You never knew whether he was going to be the man of the match, or whether he was going to fade away and be an anonymous watcher. No matter, for somebody of his caliber to be playing for one club, a minor one at that, for most of his career, was extremely rare.

In contrast, when he was a youngster, there was another young striker playing alongside him at Southampton. He was considerably less talented all round, but he had a very forceful personality, and he always gave his best no matter what. He moved to Blackburn where he won the league, and then to Newcastle, his hometown club, where he was their biggest player. He came closer than anybody before or since to winning the European championship on home soil in 1996. There were a few good years, where they qualified for the Champion’s league, even though they never actually won anything. He was Alan Shearer.

And while Alan Shearer was almost always in the England team, the same was not true of Matt Le Tissier. He only had less than 10 caps. There were coaches who tried to sign him away from Southampton, Glenn Hoddle for Chelsea and Terry Venables for Tottenham. But later on when both were England managers, neither gave Le Tissier many chances to wear the England shirt.

It probably is the case that both of them recognised that Le Tissier was a talented person, no more. He didn’t have the fire or the ambition. If he didn’t want to get to the next level, then he shouldn’t represent England either.

I was first called a procrastinator in primary school. I think back then my mother had great ambitions for me. At least, much more than she had for herself. Maybe I never got into the habit of liking what I did. But I took my time to do things, and never ever pounced into it whole heartedly. I suppose that was my nature.

The central issue of my life had already been articulated for me at a very young age, by a teacher: “it’s never about what you’re capable of. It’s about whether or not you’re ever going to use your gifts.”

I had always been an above average student when teachers had this opinion I could have been one of the best. But you never know, perhaps my talent was merely being able to appear intelligent. Some people look like owls although when you scratch under the surface they are pretty empty inside. I’m not one to trust anybody’s judgement completely.

I got things done, though. There were a few things, but they were things that weren’t competitive in nature. Creative endeavours, being the class clown, invention competitions. Stuff like that. There were wonderful things that happened during my school days, that were the result of daydreaming. I suppose I never told my parents what I really wanted to do, and after hearing them nag at me about why I never did A, in the end I could still show them B, C and D, which they never asked for. A classmate once said to me, “why are you bitching about how crappy your record is? You’ve still got a whole lot of things”. Yes, but no leadership positions, mind.

The Myers Briggs test indicator has this axis of whether you are a “perceiving” or a “judging” type. I was firmly in the perceiving area. I never liked simple explanations when the truth was more complex. I often got irritated when my boss told me to water down the story for an audience. I got annoyed when some people are always so sure of themselves, although I do notice something: first, they will be right a great number of the time, and second, when they are wrong people seem more willing to forgive them. But people like that, people who act on their first impulses, aren’t generally the creative types. The creative types are the ones who are willing to entertain crazy ideas and make them work, or are willing to wait and do nothing until the perfect idea or the perfect opportunity comes along.

I ended up taking on a job that I wasn’t 100% sure that I enjoyed. There were people who were always telling me that since Maths was my best subject, I should do something that was related to it, and this job had a lot of Maths. But somewhere I knew that it wasn’t true that Maths was my best subject: I was good at a whole lot of other things too, it was merely the first subject that I took to. It was horrifying to discover that perhaps I wasn’t going to enjoy it that much. But I didn’t do much to look elsewhere.

I “majored” in Maths at school. I think it was lazy thinking, after all it was the subject that I could do, that was very well respected. I could have done something more useful, or something that I liked more. But I got lazy or stubborn and didn’t want to change. I could have been a computer science major instead.

I couldn’t decide what I liked best either, so I just tried a bit of everything. It was very disorientating, even though I was sorda glad that I had a very varied education. Although sometimes I wondered whether I was putting in a lot of effort at trying to master a discipline that I would never see again in my life. Perhaps it could have been a bit more focused. Still it is very amusing when people point at me and say, “maths guy”.

Some people have judged me and said that I’m a wanderer, a drifter. It’s not entirely false. But it’s a little unfair when they always think that this is a weakness rather than a strength. Eventually, I learnt: you can only do one thing at a time. So at any one time, you should decide what you’re going to do, give it your best, concentrate, and do well so that even though you never have to do it again, there will be no regrets.

I could have gone around and immersed myself in American culture instead of holing myself up in books. But I just felt that books had more to teach you than popular culture, most of which was junk anyway. Unfortunately it’s popular culture, rather than books that makes it easier for you got earn friends.

There were always things that people were going to do in a lifetime: grow up, earn money, start a family, settle down. I have dithered at these things. Financial planning, learning to drive a car, getting your own house, these are things that I did late in life, later than many of my peers. There were things that stood in my way: building the perfect CD collection, downloading MP3s, watching movies, reading books. Especially reading books.

There was this once, when I thought that I would go after a girl. We had 1 or 2 dates, nothing special. I decided to stop for a while while I did other things – I can’t remember the reason I gave myself for procrastinating, but it couldn’t be important because I can’t remember it now. Maybe I wanted to spend the weekends reading books instead of wracking my brains thinking about what to do for the next date? Maybe it was the marathon? But the marathon was 5 months ago. In any case, 6 months passed, a year, and suddenly I get some rumours that she’s going out with somebody else. There’s nothing to blame people for, only myself for being so spectacularly stupid. (Edit: you can read more about this episode when I get down to publishing an entry called “teapot”)

On one hand, it shouldn’t make any difference because, both before and after I wasn’t doing anything. On the other hand, I learnt about this when I was about to go look for her again. It’s very irritating and disruptive of my plans.

There are a lot of things that were fun when I was younger, but I outgrown them. I used to take a stack of books to an all night café on Saturday night and read the whole night, or at least as much as I could. Either that or I would go watch a football match at a coffeeshop and read a book at the same time. Some of the other patrons look at me, bemused. One of them even called me to the face, “our friend with the books” But to me it makes perfect sense to watch matches and read books because you can always have something to do when all the boring stuff is going on, which is 50% of the time.

It was good while it lasted. I’ve blogged about this before, you felt like because you were putting in that much effort, that you were doing something with your life. There are nice places in Singapore that are not overcrowded, even on weekends. You can pick up I-S magazines and there will be cafes in out of the way areas located where lots of wealthy angmohs stay. Some are expensive, some less so, but you will not get hordes of screaming kids and maids like in a suburban mall.

But I think gradually I was doing so much of it that it felt like overkill. In retrospect maybe I wasn’t really enjoying it but rather the placid stresslessness of doing nothing.

In the last few weeks, I had decided to stop my lazy, horizontal lifestyle. There were a few factors. Maybe it was a change of job scope which made me busier. Maybe it was my getting older and realising that time was running out. Maybe my first foray into dating in a long long time forced me to reconsider how I have to live my life so that my dreams for myself don’t remain just that – as dreams. Maybe I just needed to live out a whole era of procrastination in order to learn that it wasn’t really what I should be doing.

"Perfect Day"

It was near the end of my take-home exam. As usual, I only started work on it the 3rd day. But the proofs were more or less sketched out. Yet I, the inveterate procrastinator waited until I had to stay up all night on the 6th night, before I started writing everything down.

On the 6th night, I got home to find codfish online. We had a cyber relationship for a few months, but it was breaking down. For a while, she thought nothing of feeding my insecurities until one day, on Valentine’s day, I tore into her with every insult that I could think of. We made up after that, but things were never really the same.

Things came to a head that night. I can’t remember the exact details, but that night was the night that I knew, in no uncertain terms, that it was over. It was the first time I was heartbroken, and as some of you might know, the first time is the worst.

There was still the take-home exam to do. I was writing it up while curled up in my favourite bathtub. Soon it was dawn. I only slept for 2 hours, and the first class, where I had to hand up my take-home exam, I passed by in a zombie state.

For the second class, I had to make a presentation that covered the whole period. It started OK, then when I was halfway through the proof, I made a mistake, and the professor leapt upon it immediately. I got annoyed with him and answered back. My mind was blank, and he challenged me with a vindictiveness that I found quite unnerving in that mental state – heartbroken and sleep deprived. In the end, I discovered my own mistake, and recovered to finish the rest of my presentation. Some in the class were probably repulsed by the angry, bitter expression etched on my face. For most of them, however, it was just one more higher mathematics class, when you have long since lost the thread of the original argument. They stared ahead in blank boredom.

After the lesson was over, an acquaintance, to whom I hardly spoke to, but who had been my classmate for various courses, came to me, and said, “He’s a PhD. He’s qualified to take your argument apart like that.” I smiled weakly at him. If only he knew the rest of the story!

If people were to ask me, “what is the worst day of your uni days?” I would definitely tell them about that day. But you have to see it in a larger context. The breakup with codfish was inevitable. I even knew it was going to happen from day 1. We stayed friends for a few years after that. For the 2 maths courses, I got an A and an A-. In the larger picture, nothing I did on that day was truly damaging. Except maybe it was very bad for morale.

So why am I telling you this? Because I just went through a minor version of what happened on that day. There were some things I didn't know until the night, and that was when I figured out why ppl were suddenly so nice to me.

Why Numbernine is Single

A lot of guys were asking me why I didn’t have a girlfriend. It’s high time you guys got a straight answer.

Reason #1: the last time I tried to have a girlfriend, it didn’t turn out that badly. She was hot. A lot of people were after her. Some said she was out of my league. But I managed to get her to pay attention to me, a person she hitherto hardly knew, and who was staying 12 time zones away, and I held her attention for 3-4 months. She could have anybody she wanted, and we both knew it. What happened?

I’m not calling myself a Casanova. But the conclusion is that “I’m not that bad at this, aren’t I?” So it was complacency. That I could start again when I was older, and it wouldn’t be that much of a problem.

But those of you on this blog who have been following the saga of 7-8 and water girl will recall that some ladies are immune to my charms. That sucked, although I found out much later that she felt that we were incompatible – and she was right.

Reason #2: I’m picky. It is not that I have to have the hottest member of the species for my member. It’s something like, if I were to say, I want to find the female version of numbernine. Hello, guys, have you ever seen the female version of numbernine? Have you seen anybody else who is remotely like me? I have to settle for a close enough approximation.

Personality is also very important. If somebody has got the body, but not the personality, I would ask her for a few nude pictures, and go off somewhere to jerk off. It's just not worth putting up with a bad person just because she looks great. It'd be great if you could show off a trophy girlfriend to all your friends but I don't have a lot of friends.

Reason #3: The last one ended badly. To be sure, I knew it was going to end. I knew it wouldn't last. But I wasn't prepared for the 4 months of depression I went through, having to juggle that with a busy study schedule, running my own household. I wondered if I had given up too much to a cyber-relationship and passing up great opportunities that you only got in a good uni. It's difficult to say if I regretted it, because you cannot discount how, when it was good, it was damn good. The highs were high and the lows were low. I needed some peace.

Reason #4: my sister and my cousins. My sister has been living overseas for 10 years. She's a hardy person, almost a masochist. But I get struck by how she goes from guy to guy around once every year. I never wanted to be like that. Breaking a relationship is just like dislocating your shoulder. If you do it too often, it will keep on popping out at inopportune moments. I never want that until I'm ready. This is a minor reason.

But reason #5 is the most important: I didn't make space for another person in my life. I seldom organised my life around more than 1 person, and that would be the biggest change for me. Accomodating somebody else in my life.

I had an ex-colleague who took it upon himself to push me towards getting a chick. I appreciated that but it's like that gym instructor who tells you 5 more sets when you're ready to give up. I called him mofo, or "manager of fucking operations". He used to tell me, don't be shy. Well if you've read this far, it was never about shyness. It's always about what happens after the first few dates, and you are about to embark on an adventure together. And then what?

I had never believed that I was going to be single forever. But I always wondered if I was old enough. I thought, I'll wait until I'm 30, and it should be easier. And in some sense I'd be right. But it will never be like it was in your 20s when you are really carefree. I thought, it would be just like it was the last time, I was wrong.

And sadly, there's no such thing as bad sex when you're in your 20s. But it doesn't get better after that. And if you didn't take advantage of that, that's unfortunate.

Punctuated Equilibrium

There are basically 2 theories about change. One of them is that it happens gradually, and the other is that it happens suddenly.

Take, for example, option pricing theory. The Black Scholes model assumes that share prices move continuously, ie they don’t jump. But a few catastrophic episodes which have wiped out the accounts of not a few hedge funds have proven the theory of gradual change to be wrong.

Take, for example, the theory of evolution. Even people who agree on evolution disagree vehemently about how evolution takes place. Richard Dawkins takes the adaptionist approach, and thinks that the species evolved continuously and steadily. Stephen Jay Gould believed in “punctured equilibrium” where species stayed the same most of the time, but underwent sudden changes in response to a sudden change in the environment, which killed off most of the population except for a small minority lucky enough to have the right mutation.

Take, for example, the great debate that arose among practitioners of Mahayana Buddhism: a group of them felt that enlightenment is gradual. And then there was the Linzhi school, who started the Zen tradition (yes, Zen is a Chinese invention, not Japanese) who contended that it was sudden.

I live life in punctuated equilibrium. A lot of things don’t change for a long time. I lead the same boring, normal life, and suddenly, when it changes, it changes completely.

Something turned my life upside down 20 years ago around now. (Actually you may recall that this was also around the time the Berlin wall fell, so just as well there were a lot of changes in the world as well.) 10 years ago, another big series of changes took place in a short time. It’s only looking back, now that I may be on the brink of another great set of changes, that I realized that these two epochs were placed almost 10 years apart.

10 years ago, things were in a great flux. It was that 2nd year in college.

I started thinking seriously about a career in science (because of my circumstances I had to seek a watered-down alternative – half a glass full or half empty depending on how you look at it).

I finally believed that I could be a composer. (I have written around 30? 40? Lost count – songs since then)

I fell in love. (this didn’t last)

I became a film buff (the object of my affections was a film buff. I haven’t talked to her for years but she now has a PhD in film studies.) This didn’t last, but for a while, as I started to absorb the possibilities of this art form, I spent a lot of mind-blowing evenings at the cinema. Most of my all time favourite films were those I watched around this period. I could never be a film buff for long because of the suspicion I was whiling my life away.

I decided to become a kinder, gentler person. (Quite unfortunately this didn’t last – any much longer than my love affair did.)

I became a bookworm / I took an arts minor. (Strictly speaking, this was not true. But I started a lot of reading courses because a lot of engineers sucked at them I wanted to know if I could survive them. I did. Later on, after graduation, I became a bookworm. It’s hard for people to realize this, but I was not a bookworm when I was a kid, and I might not be one a few years from now.)

When I started learning about psychology for the first time, I had a lot of my thinking cleared up (or at least, I had some notion about the motives and driving forces of people, where before I had mostly behaved like I was a robot.)

I started living life with a passion. (This is partly still true. My behaviour is still more purposeful and driven than when I was a teenager, and just another cattle in the herd. But the fire is definitely burning much less strongly today. Is it any wonder? I am growing old.)

I took up cooking. OK, in a way this was based on necessity, but it was great – for a while. But I have never cooked while back in Singapore.

I took up exercising regularly. (It was strange because after NS I swore: I’m free from all this shit. I never liked physical exercise while in there. But falling in love made me horny, and the horniness manifested itself in exercise. Sorda. I still make it a point to exercise once a week.)

I also broke with the past. There were a bunch of people I considered to be my friends, but we never reached any real rapport with each other. I allowed those friendships to fade away, even though I would say hi to them if I met them on the street (which for some reason is “almost never”). I used to engage in really useless activities like hanging out in CD shops and looking at new music. I stopped that. I used to spend long periods of time staring at the ceiling, doing nothing. I decided then that life was too precious to while away like that, although I still spend hours surfing and then wondering where my time has gone.

Yes, I imagined all that to be Year Zero. (In the French and Cambodian revolutions, they reset the calendar for a few years.) It was not hard to imagine, because it was 1999.

Things have faded somewhat, and there were a lot of disappointments along the way. But when your life has changed as thoroughly and completely as it has in that comparatively brief period of time, you usually measure yourself against that.

Dead Hobbies

1. This isn't really related but I sometimes think about the hobbies that I used to have. One of them was Transformers. They were really a big thing during my time. I didn't have transformers toys but I liked Mask toys. Had quite a few. Zoids too. And then the miser genes I inherited from my old man kicked in and I said to myself, "why am I keeping all this junk in my house?" Some people never get rid of these hobbies, which is why you see grown up men still having Transformer toys in their cabinets. I'm different, and while I will still marvel at the ingenuity of these toys, they're done for good.

Also I still remember the time when I had the burning desire to be a playwright. I used to watch a lot of sitcoms and analyse the flow of the dramas and plots. I only paid attention at literature classes when they are talking about literary devices, because they are the working tools of a playwright. I usually don't give a shit about memorising essays and getting A1s for literature. My literature teacher bragged that one of her former students who was a good playwright didn't take her advice to write simple and uncontroversial essays, and he got an A2 instead of the A1 everybody expected him to get. I can see her point but if you asked me to get an A2 in lit instead of writing a school play, I would have taken the school play instead. (I got A2 for lit and I was happy with it because I used to get Bs all the time.)

But my playwriting career is over. It will take work and effort to get back the momentum I once had. I entered the 24 hour playwriting competition in 1999 (I won something) and in 2004 (I didn't) and I considered entering again in 2009 but I eventually didn't.

I still remember 6 months ago when I was still running 5-6 hours every week, in order to get myself ready for the marathon. Considering that I am a little reluctant to run half marathons in the future, this is another vanished hobby of mine.

Blogging? I used to blog a lot more often than I do now. I used to entertain thoughts of having a very well read blog until some unfortunate flame wars have put paid to that notion. Once a week, I can still maintain that momentum now. I still have something to write about. I'm blessed with a lot of creativity - it takes an extraordinarily long time for me to run out of ideas. But maybe one day I will.

So a lot of people call me a bookworm. Yes, but the mountain of books I used to have on my reading list is now a small pile and eventually it will go down to nothing. I don't know if it's coincidental. I used to look forward to the weekend because it would be time to myself to read what I want, and now I'm a little sick of reading, I have problems doing it for more than 1 hour at a go. And then I will have to find my next hobby to occupy myself.

I have another hobby - not really a hobby because I can't do it all the time. It's songwriting. I've been thinking about how to take it to the next phase, so that will occupy my free time for a while.

A new hobby of mine would be learning about computer science. I once considered that as a major but took Maths instead. Now I'm wondering. Of course this is reading, but it does mean that another subject that I really used to enjoy reading about would be slowly phased out - that's history. I now have a framework of world events and their significance, how we got to what we are today, so further study is no longer necessary.

2. As for work - I thought about how I looked at it. In around the 4th or 5th book, Harry Potter learnt that he was placed in the care of his aunt and treated like a Charles Dickens character for a reason - that whole place was magically protected against Voldemort. Unfortunately that's my attitude towards work at the moment. They're treating me better than Uncle Dursley is treating Harry Potter, but that's not saying much. If you want to think about how long you're going to stay in a place, think about how you'd feel if you were asked to take over your boss' job. Would you like the work? Or is it just a fatter paycheck in the end?

There are many worse places than my job, I know that. It protects me from idleness, having a completely purposeless existence. But are all thinking jobs like that eventually? Just sitting behind a desk, and churning away at data? Would I find some other job, and eventually, run into the same problems, getting tired of it all? That's the issue. I think this issue could be far deeper than something you could solve by switching lines.

I think that when you’re doing something – anything, actually, there are 3 stages – the beginning, the middle and the end. The beginning is usually quite rough, and you’re trying to learn the ropes, trying to be good at what you’re supposed to do. The middle is more comfortable, you’ve found a group of people you’re comfortable with, you’re getting by in your work. The end is not very comfortable, knowing that another new beginning is ahead of you, trying to make that new beginning happen, having to do a lot of things at work that you’ve been putting off because you were never comfortable doing them in the first place.

I’m getting old. I look at people at work who are 5 years younger than me and I think that I am looking at myself in a funny mirror, because that is the destiny that I could have taken, a road that I could have gone down, but instead I chose not to go down. And every time you go past a big big junction in life, you’re always wondering, could I have gone the other way?

They are articulate, polished. More conscious of their self image, and usually thinking about how other people are going to interpret what they say.

If people project a good self image, is that good for the company, or are they merely selfish people who are looking out for number one? I don’t know. What I do know is that this method of doing things was so foreign to me that I simply did not bother to try to take it up. I could have done that, but I wouldn’t be me. (Which may not be such a bad thing, considering the number of people who have come up to me and advised me to “stop being yourself”)

They believed fully in their careers, and the primacy of their careers. I gave up on it almost as soon as I had begun, in a fit of pique, when I was going through some difficult period. At that time I was totally sure that my future lay elsewhere.

But something strange happened. I developed a curious respect for the way that things were done at my workplace. Why do I use the words “curious respect”? When I was in secondary school my bio teacher took the whole class out on an excursion to a mangrove swamp. At first I thought that it was a very dreary place, and it is the epitomy of unproductive land. But later on he explained how things worked in the ecosystem, how the mangrove prevented the river from washing away the soil from under the rainforest, how it was a home to many animals like Kermit the frog. I wrote at the end of my report that I had developed a curious respect for the mangrove and he wrote back that he liked that comment. As with the mangrove swamp, so with my work place.

As for my workplace, it is the closest thing you get to a war zone. As a student in school I despised the military, and swore never to join the SAF, and how I got to join something that’s even more war-like than the SAF (let’s be honest here, the SAF doesn’t fight wars) is one of the big quirks of fate. But you always have to remember that all harsh words are said in the heat of the moment, all mistakes are made in the heat of the moment, it is so difficult to judge them because this is war, and all sorts of crap takes place when there is a war going on.

I look back at those guys, who developed the right attitude towards the place, and I wonder if it was possible to have a positive attitude win over the lazy cynical attitude that eventually took over me. For me it is a constant battleground between those two. Among my colleagues there are a few who have that positive attitude, a few whose lazy cynical attitudes have won, and the rest, for the most part, are battlegrounds. I think my bosses were not good enough psychologists to realise that I was a battleground, and at first only saw the lazy and cynical side. Eventually, though, they found out.

I also think about that one part in my life when I did try to overcome my snide and cynical attitude, and try to be nice to everybody at the same time. It was a happy, hopeful period in my life and not coincidently it was also the one time in my life I was going after a chick. Who knows how differently history would have turned out if I had won her over? (But I made the judgement call - probably a correct one - that she wasn’t worth the trouble.)

Well in a way all roads are connected and just because you turned this way on one junction, it doesn’t mean that you can’t turn back. And sometimes it might be fun to just wonder what it would have been like if I hadn’t taken this particular turn.

So even at this late stage in my work, I still feel like I'm learning new stuff. I'm taking my time. Eventually the time will come when I feel that this is no longer the case, and after that... toodle loo....

3. There’s this mahjong game that I won’t forget. I played it on Bintan, with a few friends (Shingo may have been one of them, I can’t remember.) Now I’m a mahjong novice, and not that experienced, I take too long to think of my next move, people usually get a little irritated with me. Usually that’s what happens. My brain works better in parallel rather than in series. I excel at solving problems which require some unusual and novel solution, rather than doing something repetitive over and over again and doing it well. So making fast and good decisions in mahjong, I’m not good at it.

There was this incident where I already had what it takes to "hu" and I didn't even know it, it took Totoro's husband, looking over my shoulder to tell me.

But there was this game, I had basically a formation, and was just missing one more tile to complete it. After a few moves, I began to sense that the tile was never going to come, so I set about dismantling 1 section of that formation, and building something else, and I won that round.

Leonpix who was overlooking it was surprised, and he started off in his machine gun Mandarin about what I did (I roughly got the gist). It was probably something he wouldn’t have done, something that he perceived to be really risky.

As you might know, risk is all a matter of perception. Risk is about something that is unknown, and people have a different set of criteria when they are talking about risk.

The way I saw it, I had 2 of a kind and I was waiting for a third. It was possible that somebody else was also holding on to the other 2 tiles, in which case I would never be able to get it. The chance of success, in continuing on my current path, was approximately zero. Better for me to break that 2 of a kind (this is risky too, because it could allow somebody to game. But it was still a risk worth taking.) and then risk building up another formation. I would at least have around a 50% chance of success. In this calculation, what I was doing was not risky at all, but an oblique way of maximizing my chances of success.

But I suppose we all have this thing about holding on to what we have. We think that a bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush. But sometimes the bird in your hand is not the bird you want, and there are more than 2 on the bush.

What I have read about psychology is that people usually have a very distorted view of risk. People tend to over exaggerate the sensational ways of dying. For example, terrorism. If I were to take a cold hard look at terrorism, I would not believe that I would die like that. OK, maybe my not working in an office tower has something to do with that belief. But I commute to work, and I use one of the most crowded MRT stations, and every morning, there is a traffic jam. All it would take is 1 suicide bomber with a backpack, and he could take out approximately 200 people if he’s in the middle of a

In other things, we tend to underestimate our risk. Land travel is risky. The number of people who died as a result of the 9/11 attacks is 3000. In America that year, between 2-3000 people died in car crashes. So why does 9/11 “change everything”, whereas car crashes don’t change anything?

Biking

I was a biker for a year. It was my last year in the U. I took over the bike that my housemate had owned. I was living in the same place for the last 3 years and I only realised belatedly that a bike would have drastically improved my quality of life. Stupid stupid me….

I had held back from getting a bike because I saw that much of my campus was on hilly ground. Yes, but most of the campus also lies on a plateau, so if you avoid certain routes, and if you avoid cycling into town, it’s quite manageable to bike. This is certainly not NUS where every single road is sloped.

Yes, I wear a helmet. I used to joke to my friend Nat that Indians have something in their DNA that makes them persistently engage in risky behaviour in traffic. (cf the infamous Indian Jaywalker). Well now I see he doesn’t believe in helmets either. I wore one because I saw all the bikers in my school wear one, so I didn’t give it a second thought. And it’s not like I was ever going to sweat into that helmet because I’m never there during the summer, and any other part of the year, that helmet’s going to keep you warm.

On the first day I had the bike, my old housemate had chained it to a pipe in the basement. I didn’t know how to use a bicycle lock (and I think, today, I’ve also forgotten) so I had to ask a nice new housemate of mine to please teach me how the thing is done, and also please do not tell anybody the code.

I remember my old housemate once falling off her bike and getting grazed and whatever. It never became a problem with me. I never fell off my bike.

The bike was never about me loving the great outdoors and stuff. It was strictly about getting from point A to B. Yes, it is quite a bitch to be biking around in the slush, and you have to be very careful if there is ice around. But the area was generally very well maintained. The roads are well salted and everything. The rides were quite pleasant. I never need an iPod (and anyhow they didn’t exist in those days) because I can play Bill Evans piano solos in my head from memory so it was a good companion to my biking.

There was one time I was biking from the computer lab back to my place at 3 in the morning, and the whole place was under a blanket of snow. I thought to myself, “this is the most desolate place in the world”.

Blizzards though, are a different thing. I had to go bike my way to class in the middle of a blizzard, and by the time I got there, my pants were all drenched. I didn’t know where to park my bike because the bike park was under 1 foot of snow, but I chained the bike to something anyway. That was quite some experience.

I tend to struggle a bit when I am climbing up slopes. I avoid steeper slopes, but there was a medium slope in front of the engineering building. Once, I was cycling too far out and some redneck with a big beard and a big pickup (cliché I know but it did happen) nearly bumped into me. As I cycled on, he drove his truck alongside and screamed at us “bloody students” for endangering him and his children. I was thinking, yeh, I’m the dickhead but aren’t I going to be the one doing the dying when something bad happens?

Fortunately none of these things happened to me.

The academic year that I was biking was also the time when I learnt how to drive. Yes, I knew I was going to learn driving while in the States, and far away from the scoundrels who overcharge in Singapore but I waited 3 years to get this simple thing done. I’m such a procrastinator. I will tell you about it some day, just not today.

Thus concludes the first and probably only posting you will ever see about biking on my blog. I know that (cough cough) certain others can write reams and reams about it, but that is beyond my ability.

School days

We’ve had some good times together. We often talk about that class we had back in Sec 1 and 2, even though we have been in each other’s class on other occasions. That was one memorable class, and an extremely difficult class to control. We were 1O, as in we got the 15th letter of the alphabet. To the best of my knowledge, we were the only class to use that letter. Ostensibly the reason was it was confusing to use letters that look like numbers (even though the letter “I” was used time and again). Another possible reason was that there was never a need to use that letter again. But we liked to think that it’s also because the teachers never ever wanted to deal with a class like mine ever again.

I’ll never forget the science teacher telling us all, at the end of sec 2, that they were going to break up our class, and either it was a good thing, that they didn’t have to deal with us anymore, or it was a bad thing that “the cancer would spread”.

There were no real reasons why we had so many problems. Academically, while we didn’t have any top performers (that was the first year in school I wasn’t a top student) we were the only class where everybody got promoted. But we were also the only class with no prefects, and we were isolated there, at the end of the hallway, so it wasn’t easy to police us. In the end, we just wanted to have fun, bully the teachers, bully each other, and we didn’t give a shit about the rules. We were the crazy gang.

I only regret that my 2 years in that class coincided with a personal crisis. Those were not the happiest years of my life, but those guys made it better.

There were people who were usually very serious about their studies, but they played hard too. There was this guy who was known as a rather repressed mugger. But during those 2 years we saw his crazy side when he started telling everybody that he idolized Hitler, and he made plenty of Nazi salutes. He was also very good at shooting rubber bands.

There was this guy who was well known as the hamsap guy in my class. He used to call the English teacher over (at that time she was in her early 20s and vaguely sexy) and ask her questions about stuff. He just liked to see her bend over. There was one time when that teacher was bending over some other guy’s homework, and somebody actually shot a rubber band at her ass. I think you start to appreciate the audacity of some of our folks.

There was some teachers who screwed us, and other teachers, we screwed. I think basically most relationships we had with our teachers were like that. That English teacher was one of our victims. There was one time when we reduced her to tears in class, and she had to run out of class because somebody (Mr Hamsap) made a comment. I can’t remember what that comment was but it was in the spirit of “this comment is so stupid, I can’t believe that I’m teaching this class. I can’t take it anymore.” We had to send Hamsap outside to go apologise to her.

Then there was this time when she suddenly had to run out of class, into the female toilet (conveniently located next door) because she had menstrual cramps. We were all sniggering at this. We had to call in the teacher from the neighbouring class to take care of her.

There were many pranks, like how we locked a classmate in the toilet for fun. There was somebody in my class I didn’t like, call him Mr prickly, and I set up his desk inside the toilet. Somebody took his Shakespeare, and threw it into the urinal, and I had to go buy him a new copy. Of course one would hesitate to do this to him now because he is a commando LTC.

Another encounter I had with Mr prickly ended up a little more happily for me. We got into an altercation. He started aiming kung fu kicks at me. This was half hostile, half playful and we both knew that. But during one kung fu kick, he slipped, and ended up having his face slammed onto the leg of a desk. He lost half his front tooth, and he never hesitates to remind me, almost 20 years later, how I was the one who took out half his front tooth.

David Bowie has got a lazy eye, much like one of the VPs in the company I work for, and that lazy eye was the result of a school fight. I wonder what the guy who gave him that eye thinks about it now.

This other time when we were asked to draw a sketch of a hand in art class. My classmate drew a severed hand, with all the veins sticking out. Everybody was passing that sketch around and laughing their heads off. My art teacher, who had always talked a lot about creativity, was forced to excuse this infraction.

There were people who played squash in class, and invariably before the class started the whole blackboard was covered in squash ball dots. There was a soccer game in the void deck outside that I hardly joined in, but usually watched.

There was this practice of making paper mache on the ceiling. We took toilet paper, wet it, and flung it against the ceiling. It was hilarious. The level head was incredulous that he had to get people to scrape toilet paper off the ceiling. I heard that he once threw wet toilet paper into the ventilator fan of the toilet, and in the process ended up jamming the fan so badly that it shorted.

Then there was the time when we stole somebody’s wallet, and then turned off the ceiling fan. We then tried to toss the wallet onto the ceiling fan, and there would be laughter as we turned on the fan and watch that wallet get flung in some random direction.

Of course, our horsing around didn’t get confined to the classroom. We had a classmate, a rich guy, and he kindly consented to have a barbeque held at his house. Little did he know that at the end of the evening we would have to pick Mr Prickly out of his garden pond.

There were minor infractions. Our practice of “zapping” people was carried on from primary school. To “zap” somebody would be to hit him in the balls. Not too hard, of course – we knew the limits.

There was the gay guy in our class who wore tight pants and colourful underwear that we could see because everybody was wearing white shorts. Usually Mr gay would be subject to a lynching, where people held him down by all fours, and everybody would tickle him for half an hour. It was during one of these sessions, invariably loud and rowdy, that the sec 2 head would come in and bark out, “who is the class monitor?” Dishevelled, Mr gay would raise his hand. Of course the monitor could say he was not in a position to do anything.

It was standard practice to take off somebody’s shoe and throw it around for fun. But once it happened, and the teacher caught us. This was the English teacher who screwed with us, not the other way around. She asked us to hand over the shoe, which we did. She then took that shoe, and threw it out from the 3rd floor onto the assembly square. We let out a gasp of horror as it happened. We were only allowed to get the shoe back at the end of the period.

Another time, our class faced the assembly square, and the class monitor and myself were in class, either tidying up the place or running some errand. At that time, everybody was gathered down stairs for flag lowering ceremony. (This was the last year that my school had both morning and afternoon sessions). We were on the verandah outside our classroom, in full view of the rest of the school, when, to our horror, the bell rang. We were caught outside. When the national anthem was being sung, we decided to inch our way back into the class. Unfortunately we were spotted (duh what were we thinking?) and we got into trouble.

I would like to think that I was partially responsible for this. I usually start out the class each year establishing myself as the class clown, and I did the same that year, even though that was the one class where I could not claim to be the class clown – all of us were class clowns. I like to think that I was one of the first people who gave them the idea that it was fun to be rowdy and crazy. I cannot be responsible for how it caught on like fire. That class really had “class spirit”. The teachers in my school always encouraged some form of tribal identity with the school, with the class. But I’m sure they would not have been entirely happy that it turned out like this.

In our lives, we make decisions. Conventionally, we think that students should be well behaved, prim and proper. I didn’t think that it was that way. I didn’t think that we were breaking rules. Rather I felt that we made our own rules, and we stuck to them. I usually go by this principle: can I brag about this in a few years’ time? Should I look back and think that I should have done this differently? I had little regrets about how our class behaved. We didn’t hurt anyone. Everybody had fun, even mr Gay, who later became a good friend of mine.

Conversely, would I have lived with myself if I had followed all the rules in school, and become a teacher’s pet? No. I think that smart teachers have to realize this, you can’t enforce too much discipline because it’s counter productive. Students of that age have this psychological need, that they have to be a bit of a rebel. The smart teachers realize that there is a level where you can compromise, where the student gets to be happy seeing himself as a rebel, and at the same time he’s not harming anybody, and he needs to keep it at this level.

A Double Life - 3

Scene 6

(UE Mall. A is at the side of the stage, at some higher level, looking down at the main area.)

A: Joe's going to give me a total hiding if he knows I'm here again, but I don't care. I need to see him again. I just wonder if he comes down here often enough. I just want to see his face. I just want to know what kind of life he's having. yet at the same time I don't want him to know about me. That must be it, I suppose. Oh, wait, here he comes!

(Enter B and Jennifer, and they go on to sit at a table. They're miming in this scene, because I don't have the stomach to think up of whatever cute and mushy stuff they're going to say to each other, and anyway the audience doesn't have to know anything except that they're rather intimate.)

A: My God they remind me of myself and Jackie when we were starting out. She always had me around her little finger. I'm just wondering what would have happened if I hadn't agreed to take those shots of Eddie. (Lights off except for single spotlight on A. B and Jennifer leave) Eddie, Eddie. He was the guy that I always turned to when I needed help with anything concerning the running of a business. He was an enormously successful businessman himself, and was always busy, but he never hesitated to give me any of his time. Problem was, he was too successful, and there were a number of people who wanted him out of the way. One of them was Jackie's father, Joe. What they did was simply brutal. They set him up with Jackie, knowing that he wasn't the kind of man who would easily turn down a proposition like that. Then they had me stationed under the bridge where nobody could see me. I was a photographer in those days, running my own business. Not entirely successful, but many people knew and liked my work. And there I was, clicking away, and I couldn't tell that it was Eddie that I was shooting at until the film came up.

(Lights back on, enter Eddie. Both of them walk up to the table that B and Jennifer occupied and sit down)

Eddie: Hey, A, what's up? I heard you had some trouble with the business.

A: Well.. I do, but that's not what I really came up to see you about.

Eddie: Well, I gotta tell you that it's really brave for a person like you to be striking out on your own. It's always going to be a real bitch

for you to be competing against all the major studios all on your own, and not everybody's going to appreciate your way of doing things, but .

A: There's something I gotta tell you.

Eddie: Oh, what is it?

A: Uh. it's like . uh .

Eddie: See, that's the problem with you. You just got to be more decisive. It's a jungle out there. People are out there killing each other all the time in the business. You hesitate one time and you're lost. You see an excellent business opportunity, you got to grab it with both hands. You can't really afford to think about how others are going to react to you. Once you've lost the opportunity, it's not going to come knocking again.

A: Actually, that just reminds me ..

Eddie: You've got to see that there's this edge you have over other people. All those prizes you've won in photography. You've got to learn how to use all that for publicity. You may think that it's prostituting your art, and that it's vulgar and it's crude and all that, and I could see your point of view on that, but at the end of the day what matters is that you get the message across that you must have something in you that deserves all those prizes you've won.

A: Yeh, I guess so.

Eddie: Oh, by the way, I just heard that you've just been nominated for another international freelance photography award. Congratulations!

A: Well, thanks.

Eddie: I've been talking a lot, but that's because I'm in such a happy mood. I want to tell you about this hot chick I met at Clarke Quay yesterday afternoon.

A: See, that's exactly the kind of thing that would.

Eddie: Make my day, see, she was like. well, I don't know if I've seen her before, but that's probably got to do with the fact that she's a model. A real hot babe. real intelligent too. (suddenly apprehensive) you're not going to tell my wife, are you?

A: Er . erm . no .

Eddie: Well, heck, no. It was nothing serious, we were just having a little fun. I'd have asked my wife to join in. They'd have got on fine .

A: Oh really?

Eddie: Well, somebody's just paged me . I gotta go. See you some other time. (exits)

A: (to audience) That was the last I ever saw of him. What I did to him was really dishonourable. That was the first time in my life that I ever had to hide under a bridge to take photographs, and although I didn't feel sick at the time, I really do now. All Jackie ever told me was that I was going to take a photograph of a man having a liaison with a woman. She neglected 2 important facts: That she was going to be the woman, and that Eddie was going to be the man. They just wanted to set up some incriminating evidence to get Eddie into trouble with his wife. (Pauses)

After I realised what the pictures actually contained, I wanted to confess to him, but I couldn't. It would sound ridiculous, because I had already done the deed. After they had the photographs publicised, it was the straw that broke the camel's back. His wife had long known about the womanising, but it was still alright that everything was done in private. What followed was a long divorce case and a big alimony payout.

Say what you want but ultimately she was still his first love, and he definitely didn't want it to end that way. It destroyed him. After that he wasn't the same Eddie anymore and his business empire started to crumble. And who did I do it for? What was it all for?

(Enter Jackie. She sits down at the table with him)

Jackie: (rubbing his forearm) Hey, don't take it so bad. I didn't know that he was that close to you. (A is silent) Hey, you want to hear the good news? Father has agreed to pump 100 hundred thousand into your shop. Aren't you happy?

A: (sullen) I can't complain.

Jackie: And in the meantime, he's got us a nice villa in Southern France for our honeymoon.

A: That's nice to . Look. First of all, Eddie was the guy who was helping me through all the rough times, and secondly, I don't at all like what you did with Eddie in those photos.

Jackie: Come now, it was all an act. It was all put on, you know. I didn't like him one single bit.

A: Really? You must have been a really good actor.

Jackie: Well, not really. he did have something there, though . look, why don't you stop thinking about such unpleasant things . I .

A: I can't go on with the business. I can't keep asking for help from your father everytime I run into monetary difficulties.

Jackie: Well, so much the better, then. Why don't you come join in the family business? I'm sure father's dying to have someone by his side that he can trust?

A: Well . I . I'm not very sure if I can .

Jackie: It's alright, everything's going to be fine, I can assure you .

A: I hope so, it'll be good for the 2 of us . (Jackie gets up and leaves. A addresses audience) So, I suppose, that's how it all began for

me. Hold on, someone's coming . (hides in the same place where he witnessed B and Jennifer. This time, B and Jennifer's father, John come in.)

John: I understand that you want my daughter's hand.

B: Yes, we are very much in love.

John: Very much in love . That's just so like my Jennifer. She can convince anybody that she's very much in love with him.

A: I can't make out a word they're saying . but this so reminds me of the time when Joe was telling me I had to set-up someone in order to gain his approval.

B: At least . Jennifer's . agreeable to it.

John: Yes, yes, that is true . but . I'm not as easy as Jennifer is to convince. I need to know . more about you . you have to do something that convinces me that you're worthy.

B: What could it be?

John: This is a public place . well, come, I'll give you a ride, and I'll tell you along the way. (both exit)

A: I can see it so clearly now, he's walking in to the same trap that Joe set for me. He'll get tricked into betraying a friend, he'll leave the life he loves, and he'll find that he doesn't really care that much for his wife and her life anyway. I've got to tell him something . but what will I tell him? What can I say? I can't tell him anything about Joe and Jackie. It's insanity. It's courting death. What the hell, he'll have to learn it the hard way, just as I had to learn it the hard way. It's none of my business, anyway. None of my business .

Scene 7
Dim lighting, warehouse. The smuggling operation is being carried out. A is there, overseeing the procedures. Workers are carrying boxes in and out of a warehouse.

A: (to worker 1) You keep a lookout on that sector (points to stage right) I'll keep a lookout with mine. (Stands watch over stage left) Jennifer walks in from stage left, and at a certain distance away from the warehouse, she pretends to trip and fall.

A: Hey, I'll go see what's going on.

Worker 1: You be careful, boss. I suspect it might be a trap.

A: I think she's fallen badly and she needs help. (goes over and looks at her. Murmurs .) God, she's beautiful.

Worker 1: Guys, we'd better hurry up. I don't feel good about all this.

A: Yes, you guys go hurry up .

(Enter B, at the side of the stage left).

B: I'm not sure what this guy really wants from me, but I've got to do this for Jennifer's sake. (Starts clicking away. ) This is the first time I've had to take a picture from hiding. It's not very comfortable here under the bridge. (Click a few times) Now I've got to get up close and take a few faces.

Jennifer: Oh, it hurts very badly . I was just going home, and it's so dark in here .

A: What can I do to help, miss?

Jennifer: I've sprained my ankle, I'm afraid. It'd really help if you'd massage my ankle like this

A: Like this?

Jennifer: No, a little higher up . Oh, that really feels so good . Oh .

oh, I've got a cut somewhere there. Would you mind finding me a plaster?

A: A . plaster? Sure. (Fumbles through his pockets) I haven't got one with me right now . Hold on, I think there's a first-aid kit somewhere .

(goes over to warehouse. Jennifer gives B the signal and he sneaks up behind A as his back is turned. Worker turns around and sees somebody behind A)

Worker 1: Hey, who's that behind you?

A: Wha . (turns around, and B flashes the camera in A's face) I can't see! What the hell's going on? (B starts clicking away a few more times, and then runs away)

Worker 1: (points to 2 other workers) You two, go after them (they comply, as both Jennifer and B leave.)

A: Abandon operation! Abandon operation! (Some police sirens in the background. Workers scramble around trying to dispose of the evidence.) This is a set-up!

Scene 8
Same setup as scene 1, except that both A and B are sitting behind tables. Only a red spotlight on B. B is developing negatives.

B: (Holding up a developing print to the light) It's him, oh my God it's him. Who would have thought . My God, what have I done? (Off spotlight on B. Stage lights on A. Prisoner's visiting day. Jackie enters.)

A: (Brightening) Oh, it's you.

Jackie: (slaps A) All because of another woman? You made me a prison widow all because of a woman?

A: How was I to know?

Jackie: Of course I know what it was like. You got waylaid by her. The fact that you were susceptible to these kinds of tricks is practically the first thing I learnt about you.

A: I mean . I . it wasn't entirely my fault.

Jackie: No matter. I just wanted to hear it from you that you let yourself get waylaid by a pretty vixen.

A: Well, I did . it was just a moment of weakness, could you just .

Jackie: Right. Now that we've got that out of the way, I've got no business being in this wretched place, WIMP.

A: No. No, don't leave me now. Not when I need you more than ever .

Jackie: Don't worry about me, darling. I'll be just fine . probably seeking out better specimens of male company than what you'll be getting

in here. Bye. Don't expect me to drop by anytime in the near future. (leaves) (Stage left darkens. Stage right lights on)

B: (Linda walks in) Take a look at this . it's actually him.

Linda: Can't you stop them from .

B: Too late. They've already sent the copy of the prints to the police. There's nothing I can do now . to think that he's actually involved in all this .

Linda: You've done a terrible thing .

B: Yes. but I did it for the woman of my dreams . the woman of my dreams

. (Lights off. End of play.)

A Double Life - 2

Scene 3

B has a camera, is taking pictures of Jennifer. With every flash of the camera, Jennifer changes her pose.

B: There you go, relax, lean a little to the right. OK (camera flash)

Jennifer: Do I look alright? Is this sash on too tight?

B: No, it's just fine. (click)

Jennifer: Do you know what I like about being a model?

B: Well, I've never had anybody ask me that question before. (click)

Jennifer: Really? Not even one out of all the other models you've worked with? And how many have there been?

B: I've been in this line for almost 10 years. (click)

Jennifer: That's a lot of models, I suppose.

B: Not really, I only started photographing models around 5 years ago. (click)

Jennifer: That's still a lot of them.

B: Oh, well, maybe. (click)

Jennifer: So how many are there?

B: Dunno, fifty to sixty, I suppose. (click)

Jennifer: That's quite a lot..

B: Well, that's a fair number (click)

Jennifer: Considering that you've almost definitely had more than a few session with some of them.

B: Yes, that's right (click)

Jennifer: So. back to our question. Have any of them asked you that?

B: Asked me what? (click)

Jennifer: You know. what's so great about being a model.

B: Well. I don't know. I never really thought bout it. (click)

Jennifer: You've been in the company of many beautiful girls, have you?

B: Most of them look pretty good to me. (click)

Jennifer: Just pretty good?

B: Some of them are a little more than pretty good. (click)

Jennifer: And the very best of them? (here, she strikes a pretty provocative gesture. B is getting a little hot under the collar)

B: Well, a few of them have been really beautiful. (a beat, then click)

Jennifer: (getting closer and closer to him. From here on, her poses get more and more provocative, and we can see that she's actively out to seduce him) And the really beautiful ones. what do they make you think about?

B: What? (click)

Jennifer: Doesn't it get to you? Every other week, taking pictures of beautiful women for men to ogle at, for women to envy, and you getting a piece of the (click) action first hand. doesn't it get to you?

B: (trying to sound calm and amused) What are you talking about? I'm a professional. I just try to make you as attractive as I can.

Jennifer: (now practically sidling up to him) Attractive to whom? (click) And you still haven't answered my question. What's so wonderful about being a model?

B: Well, I dunno.. never been on that side of the camera before.

Jennifer: It's the thought that somebody out there thinks that I am beautiful. I am beautiful, am I not? (here she starts to undo her sash, and wraps it around his neck. A slight pause, then B takes the camera away from his face, and starts gawking at her. The camera goes off, breaking him out of his daze)

B: Well. rather, in fact I think you're rather.

Jennifer: Do you? Well, I've been a great admirer of your work. I do think it makes me that much more charming that such a . fine man like you would be . thinking of ways . and means . to make a girl such as myself appear more . (loosens her blouse) One just wonders what's going through his mind . all this time .

B: (jaw drops) I . just think . you're very beautiful. Very. veery . in fact, you would be even more beautiful, if you would care to stand over there, so I could .

Jennifer: Could what? I just wonder what it is you possibly could want from me . Oh, could you help me with this zip at the back, please.

B: (rather unsteady) well, what do you want with it?

Jennifer: What do YOU want with it? All the way up. or all the way down..

B: (a tense pause, then calls out to backstage) Guys, I think we can pretty much call it a day now. (Enter make -up artists, lighting crew, basically a lot of people we didn't know were there at the start of the scene. Fade away lights, except for a single spotlight on B, for a little while, then off spotlight).

Scene 4

Joe: Where have you been these past few days?

A: Nowhere in particular .

Joe: Rubbish nowhere in particular. You've been out in public, running the risk of being followed, have you?

A: Well, considering that I've stayed away from the incriminating areas all this time.

Joe: Well, yes. I mean . UE square. I can't see how that's got anything to do with the stocking operation.

A: Neither can anybody else who's been following me around these few days. I've been absolutely careful that nobody's been following me around.

Joe: You're a fool. Anybody who opens himself up to unnecessary risks a few days before a major operation is an absolute fool.

A: I'm sorry, father.

Joe: And I can't really understand why you've been going there so much these day. (pause) You aren't seeing anyone else, are you?

A: You know as well as anybody else I've been absolutely faithful to Jackie all these years.

Joe: That's right. but . you know, I've spoilt her a lot . she's got a way with people that you can't say no to .

A: I know what you mean.

Joe: I mean, you know the number of people who have been coming after her even before you've come along.

A: Not to mention the number of "friends" she still has around her . You set her up to this, didn't you?

Joe: Set her up to what?

A: Your very own daughter. you asked her to come on to me just so that you could use me to get rid of Eddie . ?

Joe: Well, what do you think? You already knew it from the onset.

A: Doesn't mean that it was right. I just ruined another person's life because of her. And it wasn't just another person, it was one of the closest people to me .

Joe: Well, a lot of it was in your hands. You could have turned us down.

A: It was not my idea to have done it to him. You set me up in the first place.

Joe: Come, come now, that's water under the bridge already, isn't it? Whatever it is, why don't we rid ourselves of unnecessary distractions and start concentrate on the upcoming operation?

A: Well, I'm not very sure that. (Jackie comes in)

Jackie: Father. wait till you hear what A's just got me.

Joe: (laughing) what? (to A) See? You're just as responsible as I am for spoiling my little girl.

A: (embarrassed) She wanted it so much.. (Jackie shows a large diamond ring on her finger)

Jackie: Isn't it great, father?

Joe: (still laughing) Oh, my son. one of these days.. (slaps him on the back)

A: Anything to make her happy.

Joe: It must have cost you a fortune..

A: It did .

Jackie: I can't believe he actually did that for me.

Joe: Just goes to show how much he can't do without you. (Jackie gives A a big kiss)

A: (brightening, blushing) well. he's right you know.

Jackie: (girlishly) You've just made me the happiest girl in the world.

Joe: (amused) Until she sees the next piece of jewellery she likes. well I'll just leave you two young and happy people to your own. I've got other things to do.

A: Yeah.

(Joe leaves. Sound of door closing behind him.)

Jackie: Isn't this wonderful? (kisses him again.)

A: Yeh.. Tell me, Jackie. Do you love me?

Jackie: Well, what a funny question to ask. of course I do. Otherwise I wouldn't have gotten married to you, would I?

A: Do you truly, truly love me as much as I love you?

Jackie: What are you talking about? What's on your mind?

A: I . was just thinking about . what we did to Eddie ..

Jackie: Why should you? It's all over and done with, isn't it?

A: How you just threw yourself all over him .

Jackie: Come, now. you knew as well as I did that it was just an act. I did it for you, remember? I did it for us.

A: Us? What do you mean you did it for us? Eddie was one of my mentors in the business. He was the one who taught me everything I knew about running my business.

Jackie: (gleefully) some mentor, eh? You were the one who brought him down in the end. And moreover you didn't seem to be doing very well yourself up till then.

A: He helped me all he could. Moreover, how was I to know it was him? I couldn't see his face from where I was . And I couldn't see the face properly until I had the negatives developed.

Jackie: (laughing) That was so long ago. I didn't think that you'd ever bring it up again.

A: All the same, I really felt cheated. Remember how we met?

Jackie: What's all this got to do with how we met?

A: I can't shake off the nagging feeling. What you did with him when I was taking those photos . so suspiciously similar to that time I had my photo shoot with you.

Jackie: (Suddenly furious) What are you trying to imply? How can you compare yourself with him?

A: Well if you could try it on me, and you could try it on him..

Jackie: Is that what it all comes down to? That I'm some kind of a cheap

slut throwing herself into every other man who comes along?

A: Well, how the hell was I supposed to know? Considering that how it started .

Jackie: How it started was how it started! Are you just going to discount 4 years of married life together just because of how it began? Just because I happened to take a fancy to you during a photography session?

A: Well God knows if .

Jackie: What do you mean by that? You're telling me I was leading you on all this time? Well (taking the diamond ring and throwing it on the floor) you can take this back, since obviously it doesn't mean anything to you.

A: Well, what I actually wanted to say was that..

Jackie: I've never been this insulted in my whole life!

A: You've never been this insulted? You should have known that I'd bring this up sooner or later. God knows why I waited so long to muster up the courage to say this to you. You'd know you had to remove this lingering doubt from the back of my mind eventually.

Jackie: What's there to clarify? I've done so much for you, can't you see? What would you be doing nowadays if I didn't ask father to look after you?

A: So now you're implying that it was merely due to your father's influence alone that had me placed on the board of directors? So what does that make me, a fortune hunter?

Jackie: How should I know what you were really after?

A: After all that I've done for your father .

Jackie: Or should I say. what you've actually done for yourself. Well, think about it. It takes 2 hands to clap. Nothing would have happened at all if you didn't decide to join in. You played your part in all this and there's no turning back or putting the blame on me for this. (Storms out)

(As usual, lights out except for spot on A, then off spot.)

Scene 5 (Spotlight on B as B walks into the stage, he finds a chair and sits down)

Linda: (as yet unseen) You're still thinking about her, aren't you?

B: Wha.? (rest of lights on, and Linda's sitting there)

Linda: You're still thinking about that woman, aren't you? That Jennifer.

B: Well, it happens that I am. So what if I am?

Linda: I think you're getting obsessed with her. Just because she came on to you like that.

B: Come off it. the girl's just being playful.
Linda: You think about her all the time. You'd do anything for her.

B: . so what if I am?

Linda: Don't you think any decent girl would think twice before coming on to another guy like she did on you?

B: Like it or not, we're going steady now.

Linda: Alright, alright, just teasing you. Well I got some serious business to talk to you. It's about the accounts.

B: We're still in the red, aren't we?

Linda: Yes, we are. Things aren't going that well with this business. This is the third straight year.

B: I know things are bad, Linda, but .

Linda: We'll have to close shop in a couple of months if things don't work out. It's really bad. This is probably going to be real cruel to you, knowing how much you like photography.

B: I could always go working for someone else..

Linda: It's not the same. And you know it, you're always so used to having things done your way.

B: Well I gotta go. I just came to drop off something.

Linda: Where're you off to?

B: (smiling) I got a date with Jennifer at UE Mall.